The Sea Forager's Guide to the Northern California Coast

I bought this as a gift for my boyfriend and he loves it. Good info and funny anecdotes.

Anyone who fishes (or clams or collects anything from the California coast) will love this book. In fact, anyone on the west coast of the USA, from Baja California up to BC, will learn how to catch, gather, clean, and cook fish, clams, mussels, eels, crabs, and seaweed from this witty and complete fishing compendium. Kirk Lombard worked for 7 years as an observer for The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission before becoming "The Sea Forager" in the San Francisco Bay Area. He conducts fishing classes, does demonstrations, and sells sustainable seafood. Info on all his coastal activities at: [...]Full disclosure: I've been to one of Kirk's fishing demos, attended a seminar on making pickled herring, and went fishing with him for night smelt (caught 15 lbs. that night, netting them in the surf).) I've gotten a ton of useful info from him, including tonight, when I used his technique for getting the skin off horseneck clam siphons (slit lengthwise, soak in warm water for 10 min.) before making clam fritters.He tells you how to catch salmon, halibut, rockfish, striped bass, and 8-10 other kinds of fish, how to gather 15 different types of shellfish, how to pickle seaweed (I've got a jar of pickled kelp in the frig right now, and put ground-up dried seaweed on omelets, potatoes, anything hot). He's big on the small fish in the area — herring, anchovies, smelt, grunion, and mackerel — because they're low on the food chain, super healthy, and take pressure off the popular fish.He's got a sense of humor, plays in a band, and has fun with his work and teaching.The book is very nicely illustrated by Leighton Kelly.

This book is unique in approach. It covers pretty much everything you can capture or use to capture a meal. Includes very practicable warnings such as mercury levels among locations, physical and biological dangers, how you might abuse collecting process even while remaining legal. For example, you can legally enough limpets per day using only one location to do damage and suggests not to do this even though its legal. Clear descriptions on how to use fish you would not normally go to along with collecting bates for more traditional fish. Also speaks to tools most would not be familiar with. Great companion to the authors Youtube videos. , algae and invertebrates and and methods to use to collect them. My new favorite book. Will be buying this book for friends.

It’s a must read if you live and fish on the Northern California coast. More than a how-to book, its infused with a lot of regional, historical, biological background that’s fun to read and cool to look at; illustrations are great. You can tell it’s written by a guy with great experience and a love of the area he writes about. Recommended.

An absolutely fantastic resource for anyone who loves seafood, California, the ocean, and getting your hands dirty (or wet as it were). Kirk does a fantastic job of putting together the details with the lore (and some recipes as well). The stories and anecdotes alone are worth the read, even if you never pick up a poke pole!It's not a list of places to fish, but contains all the other essential information you need to inspire and prepare you for some coastal sea food exploring and experimenting.For those of us who have been sort of "mini sea foragers" our whole lives, this book opens your eyes to what's really out there and how and why to start getting it yourself. I've been reading about poke poling in California for a decade or more but it took Kirk's book (and some of his videos) to convince me I wanted to try it myself, and I am now hooked (pun intended).

Very Insightful on bay and ocean fishing. Lots of great tips!

Amazing book! 10/10 recommend if you are trying to get into fishing in this area. I went from never getting fish to multiple fish a session!

Sea critter facts/info? Awesome. Recipes? Great. But what really brings this book together is the author's voice. It's funny, almost stream of consciousness at parts and it really commands your interest. When I got this I figured it'd be a reference of sorts, and I'd look up individual species of interest....nope. Read it the whole way through, novel style.A++ would be buy again. My only regret is that this book is local, and the people I would ordinarily recommend something like this to happen to not be. So alas, I must instead recommend it to the amazon masses.